Chapter 43
Irena Kellogg (2)
* * *
While playing cards with Irena, Kairus furtively checked his pocket watch.
Two days had passed, and now the designated ti was approaching.
“What, where did the guy playing cards go? Why are you suddenly checking the ti?”
In just two days, they had beco casual enough to speak informally. In life, situations like this sotis ca up.
“I’m going to wash up and have so lunch.”
“Ah, right.”
Only then, at Kairus’s words, did Irena realize she hadn’t had breakfast.
Standing up, Kairus washed himself in the shower compartnt installed in the train and ordered a al.
It was a hearty al with pancakes and eggs, roasted mushrooms and sausages, bacon, and fried potatoes.
“Are you pregnant? You’re stuffing yourself from the morning.”
“There’s nothing you won’t say to a man.”
The fact that after rely two days of playing cards together, she could blurt out such absurd things showed a fair bit about Irena Kellogg’s personality.
The reason Kairus had suddenly increased his food intake was simple.
It was ti to fill his stomach. When he finished eating, Kairus drained the rest of the coffee in his cup and wiped his lips with a napkin.
A sudden jolt sounded with a piercing screech like sothing tearing apart. At the sa ti, Irena’s body, who had been sitting opposite Kairus, lurched forward.
With a thud, Irena’s hands hit the backrest of the sofa where Kairus was sitting, and their faces ca within an inch of touching.
“What, should I give you a kiss?”
“Get lost.”
Irena looked at Kairus with an incredulous expression and pulled back.
“Hey! Tell why the train stopped all of a sudden!”
Irena shouted toward a crew mber hurrying past.
“We are checking now. Please wait without panic—”
The sound of a window shattering rang out. In that instant, Kairus lunged forward and caught hold of sothing in midair.
“Train robbers.”
Kairus spoke while looking out the window.
With a snapping sound, the crossbow bolt in Kairus’s hand broke cleanly in half. The stained glass he had left leaning against the seat was already clutched in his hand.
“Robbers?”
Irena drew her cutlass tinged with a pale violet light.
Far in the distance, a gang of robbers was charging toward the stopped train.
‘They ca, as expected.’
He hadn’t hired them with money. What Spring Parsley, who had been sent by the Rose Garden, had done was simply to incite the very robbers now rushing in.
Spreading false information to lure in train robbers was sothing any skilled architect might attempt.
‘Among them, there are about six who could fight on par with knights.’
Of the robbers Spring Parsley had drawn in this ti, six were worth paying close attention to.
Kairus’s gaze turned to Irena. Judging by her slightly tense expression, it seed this was her first real combat.
‘Well, things have been pretty peaceful lately.’
Unlike the past, when civil wars and external conflicts never ceased across nations, it was no wonder that newly appointed knights had no combat experience.
“Irena, have you ever killed soone?”
“...”
Irena did not answer. She had never killed anyone.
“I was prepared for it.”
A knight eventually took a life. Just as a doctor inevitably saw blood.
Hearing her answer, Kairus let out a bitter laugh inwardly.
‘It’s better not to make that kind of resolve.’
A first kill was best when it began with sothing like, ‘When I ca to my senses, my sword was buried in soone’s belly.’
By coincidence.
As if you hadn’t committed murder, but murder had simply happened.
It was best to muddle through the first kill that way.
“If you say so, then fine.”
From here on, what Kairus had to do was to subtly lure the robbers toward Irena.
“I’m going to send people this way. You protect the others.”
At Kairus’s words, Irena hesitated for a mont, then nodded.
“Compared to you, I’m still lacking in skill.”
Irena did not have the ability to snatch crossbow bolts out of the air in an instant.
She wasn’t the type to let pride get in the way when lives were on the line.
“All right. Then I’m counting on you.”
Anyway, what Kairus planned to do was lead the robbers over to Irena and put her in a difficult situation.
‘After all, the information Spring Parsley leaked was what it was.’
The rumor was that in this very first-class compartnt, there were three powerful pieces of battle gear and five diamond-inlaid ornants.
Naturally, the first place the robbers would target was the train car where Kairus and Irena were staying.
Kairus intended to step away for a while and return only after Irena had been pushed into trouble to help her.
‘No need for love, just enough that she feels so friendship will be sufficient.’
The goal, after all, was to build a certain level of rapport with Irena and use it to access places that were off-limits to the originally invited guests.
Whether that rapport was love or friendship didn’t matter.
While touring the mansion, Irena would accompany him, but slipping out of her sight briefly to conduct the necessary investigation would be tricky, though not impossible.
“Anyway.”
First, he had to hurry and deal with the friends who had boarded the train, eager to plunder.
‘In the end, the biggest bastard here is .’
If asked who was the worst piece of trash among everyone on this train, it was undoubtedly Kairus.
The passengers had rely boarded the train to reach their destinations. And to achieve his own aims, he had put those people in danger.
‘Still, I can’t just let them die.’
Opening the door, Kairus drew the stained glass blade and advanced quickly.
The mont he stepped through the doorway into the train car, soone shouted at him.
“Everyone, get your heads down—!”
The robber, who had been swinging a weapon through the air to threaten the passengers, didn’t get to finish his sentence.
For an instant, sothing seed to flash. Then, the head of the robber who had been yelling dropped to the floor with a dull thud.
“Put your own head on the floor.”
At once, the other robbers who had been subduing the passengers fell silent and turned to stare at Kairus.
‘What… what just happened….’
Clearly, Kairus’s slash had severed the man’s head.
But there had been no sound, and Kairus’s sword was still sheathed.
“If you want to live, pack up your things and get out. Normally, I’m not this generous.”
Kairus’s principle was never to leave his enemies a chance to survive. But this ti, he felt a prick of conscience he couldn’t ignore.
After all, if he hadn’t lured them here, these robbers wouldn’t have co in the first place. Then they wouldn’t be dying here at his hands.
Giving them a chance to live was, in a way, an apology for that.
“You’re out of your damned mind—!”
Once more, a faint glimr flickered in the air and vanished.
The head of the man who had just been shouting fell to the floor with a soft thud. If soone refused the chance he’d given, there was no helping it.
Kairus’s strike wasn’t Swift Blade. He had no intention of using the Featherwing sword style here.
The techniques he’d picked up secondhand while studying abroad were more than enough. Though he hadn’t trained in them properly and lacked depth….
‘It’s not like I’m fighting real opponents anyway.’
It didn’t matter. Even with this superficial trickery, he could still cut every last one of these bastards down.
“….”
The remaining robbers exchanged glances, then all at once rushed toward Kairus without waiting for any signal.
For a band of robbers, their unity was truly rare to see.
“Impressive. Even while plundering, you have loyalty and mutual trust.”
It wasn’t a single flash this ti. Countless flickers, like stardust raining down, appeared and vanished around Kairus’s body.
And in the next mont, the charging n all fell in unison, reduced to lumps of hacked at.
“Kh.”
Kairus looked at his wrist, which throbbed faintly, and grimaced. As expected, since it wasn’t a technique his body was accustod to, it put a strain on him.
After briefly inspecting his wrist, Kairus kept opening doors and moved swiftly to sweep through the remaining train cars.
“Uh… kyaaaaa!”
Of course, Kairus didn’t wish for any passengers to die, so he was quickly dealing with the train robbers. They were the ones he had lured here, and he felt a responsibility for them.
However, the way he protected them showed no consideration for the passengers. A woman scread as she was splattered with blood from a man who had been cut to pieces in midair.
‘Sorry. I don’t have ti.’
The train had quite a few cars, and the number of robbers was at least over three hundred. If he spent ti worrying about everyone’s ntal state, he would run out of ti.
And then, so of the passengers would almost certainly end up dead, or suffer sothing even worse.
As for what exactly that worse fate would look like—
“Look at this worthless bitch acting tough when she can’t even fight.”
“But her face is pretty, isn’t it? She looks like so noble’s daughter, thinking she was good enough to learn swordplay.”
Right now, Irena’s situation—having been defeated by the train robbers—was a pri example of what could happen.
‘This…’
Irena couldn’t believe the situation she was in. She had never killed a person. But she had always steeled herself, knowing a day would co when she must. And when that mont arrived, she had hesitated not at all.
The three or four corpses lying on the floor were proof of her resolve.
The problem was simply that her enemies were stronger than she’d expected. The ones who had been silently watching her struggle had smirked and drawn their weapons.
In that instant, everything had changed. All she could do was barely hold them off.
“This is nice. But it’s not the kind of thing a kid playing knight should be carrying around.”
One of the robbers sneered as he ran his hand over the violet-tinged cutlass, then tucked it into his belt.
“That’s… my sword!”
Irena clenched her teeth and shouted, but the only answer was a fist slamming into her stomach.
She collapsed to the floor, her body trembling with dry heaves.
One of the robbers grabbed Irena by the hair.
“I can’t stand noisy bitches.”
The sound of tearing cloth echoed in the air. Irena thrashed and struggled wildly.
When she kicked the man hard enough to make him stagger, mocking laughter rang out from all around.
“You’re lucky you were born a woman, you know? It’s better than dying, isn’t it? Just shut your eyes and count the stains on the ceiling.”
There was the sound of trousers being lowered, and the man climbed onto Irena’s body. In that mont, her resistance grew even more desperate.
“Unfortunately for you, you’re a man, so dying is your only option.”
The robber who had been gleefully tearing at Irena’s clothes was split vertically in half.
With a small ticking sound, the sword slid neatly back into its scabbard. Soone casually shoved aside the halved corpse.
A familiar face ca into Irena’s view.
“My, aren’t you cold like that?”
Kairus spoke curtly as he looked down at Irena, who, against her will, had ended up half-naked.
“I didn’t undress—I was undressed…!”
“The result’s the sa. Judging by how you’re making excuses, you’re still in one piece. That’s good.”
At Kairus’s remark, Irena turned her gaze away.
Kairus tossed a blanket from the train car over to her, then swept his eyes over the robbers who had been laughing monts earlier.
“Who here saw my attack just now?”
No one answered his question. They could only stare at the corpse split in half, spilling a revolting mixture of blood, flesh, and filth onto the floor.
“If no one steps forward, you’re all going to die here. What made you think you could attempt banditry with skills like that?”
In a way, these robbers were just like the others to whom Kairus had given a chance to escape—they had only been lured here.
But these fellows were unlucky enough to have to die right now.
‘My whole goal from the start was to show off in front of Irena and get close to her.’
And in this situation, the kind of showing off Irena would appreciate was seeing these bastards turned into corpses sprawled across the floor.
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